FFmpeg non-free in Docker

A dockerized FFmpeg compiled with non-free codecs in.
A script for easy invocation is included.

For Linux distributions where the included FFmpeg package isn't compiled with non-free codecs included.

This image pulls Deb Multimedia's ffmpeg package, which includes codecs such as Fraunhofer FDK AAC (aka libfdk_aac, the highest-quality AAC encoder in FFmpeg as of this writing), missing from most compilations.

Wrapper script installation

You can install and uninstall a wrapper script with the included makefile for easy access to the image's ffmpeg.
Running the script will pull the image if required.

$ sudo make install
$ ffmpeg-nonfree-docker [...]

You may additionally install symbolic links without the -nonfree-docker suffix:

$ sudo make install-shortnames
$ ffmpeg [...]

You may uninstall it with sudo make uninstall.

NOTE: The script will mount the host's filesystem as /host and run from the invoking directory. Additionally /home will also be mounted as simply /home.
Referencing files with relative paths should work without any extra parameter whereas absolute paths should be prepended by /host unless they're under /home.

$ ffmpeg-nonfree-docker -i input_file               # Access ./input_file from the host
$ ffmpeg-nonfree-docker -i ../input_file            # Access ../input_file from the host
$ ffmpeg-nonfree-docker -i /home/user/input_file    # Access /home/user/input_file from the host
$ ffmpeg-nonfree-docker -i /host/path/to/input_file # Access /path/to/input_file from the host

A comparison of included codecs

Note the included makefile eases such comparisons (for a selection of codecs).
For each distribution with a corresponding Dockerfile in the downstream/ directory you can get run:

$ make build-$distro compare-codecs-$distro

e.g.:

$ make build-debian compare-codecs-debian

Here's an excerpt of some important codecs (I'm only including differences):

Codec	Encoder	this image	Debian	Ubuntu LTS	Ubuntu	Alpine	Fedora
h.264
	h264_amf	yes	no	no	no	no	yes
	h264_nvenc	yes	no	yes	yes	no	yes
	h264_omx	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	no
	h264_qsv	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	yes
	libopenh264	yes	no	no	no	no	no
	nvenc	no	no	yes	yes	no	no
	nvenc_h264	no	no	yes	yes	no	no
HEVC
	hevc_amf	yes	no	no	no	no	yes
	hevc_nvenc	yes	no	yes	yes	no	yes
	hevc_qsv	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	yes
	libkvazaar	yes	no	no	no	no	no
	nvenc_hevc	no	no	yes	yes	no	no
MJPEG
	mjpeg_qsv	yes	yes	yes	yes	no	yes
MPEG-2
	mpeg2_qsv	yes	yes	yes	no	no	yes
AAC
	libfdk_aac	yes	no	no	no	no	no

Versions:

$ make pull-distros # pull the latest images
[...]
$ make versions
ffmpeg version 5.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2022 the FFmpeg developers
alpine:
ffmpeg version 5.0.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2022 the FFmpeg developers
debian:
ffmpeg version 4.3.4-0+deb11u1 Copyright (c) 2000-2021 the FFmpeg developers
fedora:
ffmpeg version 5.0.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2022 the FFmpeg developers
ubuntu:
ffmpeg version 4.4.2-0ubuntu0.22.04.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2021 the FFmpeg developers
ubuntu-lts:
ffmpeg version 4.4.2-0ubuntu0.22.04.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2021 the FFmpeg developers

Links

• GitHub
• Docker Hub